


March of Fate

by PlumTea



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Cooking, Gen, Human/Monster Romance, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-07 19:16:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17966435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlumTea/pseuds/PlumTea
Summary: After a hard winter, Kenma has been abandoned in the mountains by his village. As he struggles to survive, he makes a bargain with a monster that's just as hungry as he is.





	March of Fate

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Haikyuu Mythology Zine! Thank you to everyone who supported the project!

The hills never reach the horizon, thick trees blanket out the sky above, and the next day seems so impossibly far away. Clouds drift selfishly by, ignoring the forest below where a young man scrapes his nails against gnarled tree roots. Kenma's fingers come out from between the fresh moss covered with dirt, firmly around a tiny mushroom. An edible one finally, and he sighs in relief as he swallows the first thing he's eaten in two days.

Baby green pinecones line branches low enough for Kenma to reach. He bites into one, but it stabs at his throat and the sap makes his teeth stick together. Spitting it out, he heaves, trying to keep the mushroom down. He swallows air to quell his stomach and curls up tight until he can't feel anything, not the sharp wind of early spring, not the aching of his throat, nothing.

Unfurling, Kenma’s legs are no more stable than bent reeds. Trying again, his ankles refuse to hold their ground. His last drink was from a trickle of water from a faraway stream. His hair hangs oily and heavy, and his kimono is in tatters. With a groan, he finds a vaguely comfortable spot among the roots. A nap wouldn't hurt. Sleep is far away from the cricks in his spine and the hollow in his guts.

There’s peace, until something yanks his hand hard. His fingers are clutching a root, and his shoulders groan as someone, something, pulls. Stop dragging him, he’s not moving from this spot. He’s stubborn, but the thing pulling him is equally so.

“Not dead,” grumbles Kenma.

The tension along his left arm slackens, and Kenma realizes— someone on the ground would be pulling his arm at an angle. But the thing was pulling his arm straight up.

The tugging persists, a harsher strain bringing his arm perpendicular to the ground. It shoots a bolt of lightning down Kenma’s shoulder. Words congeals in his throat. Pangs reverberate down his windpipe and all that comes out is a wheeze. Pull, stretch, pain, pull.

Every muscle aches, but Kenma hauls up the last of his strength and yanks his arm down. His wrist hits the mud with a splat, and whatever is pinned to his hand comes down with it. A yelp, a thud, then silence.

Kenma lifts his nose from the mud, and finds his arms are useless at his sides. He twists his head, and spots the black of a kimono and a thin, pale hand. A flash of orange is the last thing Kenma sees before plunging into the dark.

 

* * *

 

“How am I going to get home? Sawamura’s going to yell at me...”

Kenma makes to pull his mat over his head. When he feels only air, he remembers that the only mattress he’ll sleep on again is dirt.

He’s not alone, and dark wings are sprouting from the stranger's back.

When Kuroo would visit Kenma’s house, he’d bring stories with him. His favorites were of youkai, of the ame-onna that bring rain and the tengu that rule the mountains. Young tengu like to prank unsuspecting humans by snatching them up and dropping them from the air. They'd pick off those who strayed too far from the path, pester them, trick them, devour them. Mischievous and fiercely intelligent, they ride the wind and feast on human flesh. Uncaring about the world, they bring disaster wherever they go.

"It isn't an act of malice," Kuroo said. "It's just the way they are. They like tricking humans and gobbling us up."

"But they don’t come here."

"Why would they? This place isn't their home. But up in the mountains, their mountains, where we can't see them, there's no better spot to hunt.”

A creaky breath slips out of his throat, and the stranger whirls around. He swoops in so fast that Kenma can only flinch before they're close enough to brush eyelashes. He draws back, but the tree trunk blocks his retreat. The monster’s eyes are black- and his skin is whiter than the cleanest porcelain. A mask in the shape of a bird's beak covers everything from his nose to his jaw, and taps Kenma's chin when he tries to turn away.

Tengu bring disaster. Their wild celebrations send the wind howling down the mountain to wake the villagers up when they sleep. They ruined the soil and laughed when the boulders crushed the merchants bringing the last supplies before winter.

“You’re awake.” The tengu’s voice is more spindly than Kenma expected. “What were you doing? That hurt!”

“You were going to eat me.”

“You were dying and would’ve made a great meal! I can't believe you threw me that hard! Now stay still. I'm hungry."

Fear clogs Kenma's joints. With all the carts he's seen over the winter, leaving the houses they exits from more empty than before, he thought he'd be prepared for this. He’d lost his purpose, so one day death would fall upon him.

Kuroo’s voice echoes in his head, desperately screaming Kenma’s name as the villagers held him back. Even with his limbs much thinner than they ever should be, he fought when the villagers held him back. “Don’t you dare die up there! You stay alive and show them they made a mistake!”

The tengu’s wings flap as if he’s trying to right himself. He’s sitting unevenly on the ground, keeping pressure off his right knee. If he does nothing, then this hungry tengu will rip the meat off his bones. It’s a gamble, but it’s all he has. “Tengu aren’t the only thing in the mountains. You can eat me and be fine for the first few days, but then what? What are you going to do when you’re delirious and starving and something sneaks up on you?”

Mouth open to protest, the tengu billows, but pauses. A wash of fear falls across his face, and his wings sag. “The gashadokuro come out at night.”

“I have a proposal.” The tengu freezes, and Kenma worries that he might get his head crushed in. When nothing happens, he continues to speak. “You need to heal up. Take me with you, at least until you’re better again."

The tengu frowns at him. "What do I get out of it by going hungry?"

"Nothing can sneak up on you, because I'll be watching. I can cook. It might not be human meat, but at least we won't get killed or starve."

Kenma interprets silence as a stalemate.

"Okay." The tengu grabs Kenma by the wrist and carelessly hauls him to his feet. "Deal."

 

* * *

 

The tengu squints at the tiny red berries lining the brush. “That’s it?”

“If we mash them up, we can make fruit juice.” Kenma wipes his mouth from the stagnant pond water, the first long drink he’s had in days. “If we find some mushrooms or nuts, then we can eat those too.”

When he raises his head, the tengu is slumped into the brush. “No meat…”

He doesn’t want to feed one of the creatures that made his life hell, but a promise is a promise. “Meat some other time.”

When they sit by the fire, the tengu tugs at the silk cords keeping his mask in place. Kenma’s expecting some sort of disfiguration like a mouth too long, or an unhinged jaw that can snap up someone’s head with ease. How disappointing that the tengu’s face looks almost human, minus the rows of sharp teeth.

They mix half the berries with some boiled dandelion leaves and crush the rest into pulp. The tengu tries it and lights up from the inside out. “Meat’s better but this is tasty! You’re really good… I never got your name.”

Few think to call their food anything but food. “Kozume Kenma.”

“Shouyou Hinata no Kami no Karasuno.”

He knew nobility had fine clothes, but he forgot nobility had long names. “Shouyou, then.”

 

* * *

 

A deer chews on a mouthful of grass. Kenma’s anxiety tightens his throat down to no thinner than a needle. They’ve been living off greens for days, and he’s not sure how long a carnivore like a tengu can hold out.

Kenma isn’t good with a bow or a blade, but he knows the hypotheticals. Breath tight in his chest, Kenma lets out a small exhale. Three, he rolls up his sleeves. Seven, he crouches down. Ten, he sprints into the clearing. Eleven, the deer sees him coming and bolts.

Blood pounds in the balls of his feet, and his throat is scratchy as sand. The shape of the deer bounds over broken rocks, knowing the slow-footed human chasing it can’t hope to catch it.

It leaps, and Hinata drops from the shadow to the sun. The flurry of wings and claws tear through flesh, tearing the deer apart at the joints. When he stops, he stares, as if he’d forgotten that life had long fled the terrible mess below. Blood clings to him like the morning dew to the stems, and through the red mist he grins at Kenma. “Let’s eat!”

Kenma’s legs are softer than he expects. “Raw?”

“Gross, no! We’re cooking it!”

Hinata’s grumbles as he cleans the carcass are comedic, but when Kenma slips a peek, he sees the guts are strewn everywhere. “You’re doing that wrong.”

Hinata pauses, hands still deep in the deer’s body. He scratches his cheek, forgetting the blood and dirt coating his fingers. “Do you know how to do it?”

Wings billowing, Hinata takes to a low branch, hoisting the deer’s body up by its neck and front legs. Kenma’s worn knife sinks into the deer’s midsection and whittles away all the edible parts. He’s taken his kimono off so his only clothes don’t get soiled, and he’s up to his elbows in blood. Sweat rolls down his back. His heart squeezes. Everything aches.

As the segments roast, Hinata hums to himself, not hiding his eagerness. Better the deer than Kenma.

Kenma starts to put his hands together, but Hinata is faster. He murmurs a prayer and then ends it with, “Thank you for the meal!”

Kenma didn’t think tengu would give thanks. Now that he’s looking closer, Hinata’s robes looks very similar to those of the yamabushi hermits that practice in the mountains. They may be different species, but Kenma didn’t think they’d have the same beliefs.

If only Kuroo had told his stories more often. If only he didn’t get whisked away to the fields, where he’d work under the sun for hours while Kenma stayed forever in the dark.

 

* * *

 

The weather is warming up, and they wash themselves in the streams and wander the endless forest. Hinata shows where in the marshes they can dig up wasabi, and helps Kenma climb trees so they can listen to the wind. Hinata likes to talk to fill the time, and tells Kenma about the tengu settlement deep in the mountains. His village is right by a river, and they build their houses as wide as they do high to drink in the morning mist and collect pine needles to keep their clothes smelling fresh. Even with his title, Kenma thinks Hinata’s the worst noble he’s ever heard of, as the boy gets jittery in meetings and is too blunt for wordplay. But more so Kenma feels silly for his preconception that tengu behave exactly like birds just because they share the same wings.

Hinata takes Kenma to a waterfall that roars down the mountainside and into a pool clearer than crystal, and they both go tumbling in. The water squeezes Kenma tight but before he can flail, Hinata is pulling him to the surface, laughing. Even if Kenma’s freezing and his robes are soaked and his feet don’t quite touch the bottom of the pool, Hinata is splashing around, black wings flapping, telling him to come have fun too.

One day, Kenma asks Hinata about the tengu’s sacred hand fan that calls gusts and Hinata shows his proudly, made of five of his own splayed out like a maple leaf, fitted on a polished wooden handle. Kenma only wanted to see if the stories were real, but Hinata forgets how breakable humans really are and shows Kenma how the skies look up close.

So many clouds swarm the blue all at once, pearl white right next to the sun. The trees that loomed over him are now lumps with a tinge of springtime green. He knew the mountains were vast but they lay infinite, rolling farther and farther into the distance and surely this is what painters have always dreamed of when they tried to create the world but this is no painting.

Even when Kenma starts to plummet, the wind whistling faster as the earth prepares to swallow him up, all he can do is keep looking out and thinking—

—Ah, how beautiful.

Hinata catches Kenma in his arms, all cheery at being able to show Kenma a sight that no human has ever seen before. Kenma’s weak heart beats frantically, but it was just as beautiful as Hinata had described and he forgives him.

When they’re huddled around a fire as the night cools around them and their stew boils, Kenma tells Hinata the same tales of youkai Kuroo told him. Even though he’s sure Hinata has heard the stories before, lived the stories before, Hinata’s eyes still glitter like a sun-lit pond as he listens, so Kenma keeps talking. The more he talks, the more he forget that tengu are something to be resented.

 

* * *

 

The stars are smothered with a cloudy pitch when Kenma hears a clattering. Jumping up, he pours dirt on the fire. Hinata starts to squawk, but Kenma shoves a hand over his mouth as they huddle behind a tree.

Birds scatter into the sky, and insects murmur damply as wafts of frigid evening air seeps into Kenma’s skin. The night fog hangs, but it swirls around something far beyond the trees, as a giant bony foot comes crashing down.

The foot goes beyond the treetops as a skeleton looms bigger than the tallest pagoda. It carelessly drags itself forward and with it comes the noxious perfume of rotting flesh.

If he breathes, then those hollow sockets might swivel down and snatch him up and chew off his head and he can’t fulfill Kuroo’s promise and then—

Hinata is poised like a spear, eyes glimmering, too much potential to be held down. He flares with so much life that Kenma feels like he’s trying to contain a burst of sunlight. Tengu are never content to stay quiet so he grips Hinata tight until the bones and the empty void they bring have passed.

Gashadokuro are made from corpses that never had a proper burial. With how harsh the winter was, he’s surprised they haven’t completely engulfed the mountains by now. How many people did he used to know are wrapped up in that skeleton?

Kenma hasn’t been able to breathe properly for the last few minutes. “If it noticed us, what would you have done?”

“Fought it, of course!”

“Even with your leg like that?”

“Yep!”

No matter the enemy, Hinata wouldn’t run. Such a person would never have wandered into Kenma’s four-cornered paradise. If that’s true, then those four corners were no paradise after all.

 

* * *

 

“Why were you wandering around up here?” Hinata hovers above Kenma’s head as he pulls up bamboo shoots. “What’s a human village like?”

Kenma’s everyday life was something he never needed to put into words. “Small. Everyone knows each other. But I wasn’t healthy, so I couldn’t do much.”

His house was a four-cornered paradise. Nobody could enter without him inviting them in first, and when he started denying visitors, people stopped asking. He knew every thatch on the mats, counted the threads in his robes, and measured every cup of rice. Everything was particular and perfect, his own curated garden he knew inside and out.

At the same time it was hell. As soon as he stepped outside, he became something incomprehensible. A monster. Something to be sacrificed when things became inconvenient.

“But it was a hard winter.”

The winter strangled their coming harvest. Even in the bud of spring, there wasn’t enough food to last the rest of the month.

 _“You don’t hunt, you don’t farm, and you have no proposals. There’s no other choice.”_ During good times being sick is merely a nuisance, but during a famine it’s punishable by death.

A small party lead him up to the mountains. They thanked him for his most noble sacrifice before vanishing. Die honorably, for the sake of everyone else. How laughable, that those that threw him out when it was inconvenient would try to preach to him about _honor_.

“And then they didn’t need me anymore.”

Hinata angrily huffs, wings bristling. “They left you here to die?” When Kenma nods, Hinata mumbles thoughtfully, “So that’s why so many people came here recently.”

Brutality wasn’t just restricted to his home. The tengu’s curses must be infecting the other villages’ crops too.

He’s had so much fun that he almost forgot that Hinata lives in the shadows of humanity’s fears. His kind were the same that threw the boulders that crushed Tsujimura when he was bringing the last haul of the season back from the marketplace. The kind that floats fires down the rivers and knocks over trees to torment the woodcutters.

Not Hinata. Hinata wouldn’t lay down curses just for the sake of doing so. He’s innocent, but Kenma slips out. “Why did you tengu do it?”

“Do what?”

“Curse us. Torment us. Because of your kind, a lot of us didn’t survive the winter. It was a tengu’s curse that ruined the land.”

“You think we did that?”

“Who else?”

The blackness in Hinata’s eyes grows like a spillover of mud, and Kenma remembers how foolish he is to think he shouldn’t be afraid. “Just because we’re stronger than you doesn’t mean we don’t suffer. Not all of us survived the winter either.”

Kenma’s never been good with eye contact, but Hinata’s sharp eyes fill him up with shame for thinking tengu were immortal just because they weren’t human. “Then what was it?”

“Bad weather.” Then the mud retreats. “Humans are so weird. You act like you don’t want us around, but you’re the reason we’re here to begin with.”

Kenma opens his mouth to ask, but Hinata’s already captivated by a patch of bulbous mushrooms ahead.

 

* * *

 

“It’s still not done?” Hinata frowns at the fire as if it would make the rabbit cook faster. His wings are close enough to brush Kenma’s side, and every time Kenma shudders at the contact. He’s never touched a bird before, but the wings by his are warm, ever shifting, and breathing with life.

He reaches out to touch a feather, but a twittering in the trees jerks Kenma’s hand back.

“Just a bird,” Hinata points out.

“It could’ve been one of your comrades.”

“Nobody’s looking for me. It’s a pain to come down unless it’s to hunt.”

“Down?”

Hinata points a slender finger up the mountain to where the mist has folded upon itself so much it’s become smoke. “Humans don’t like the mountains, so we can be left alone.”

Kenma finds himself smiling. “So you _are_ yamabushi. Warrior hermits, but with wings.”

“Even Lord Ukai thinks their practices are fine.”

“Copycats.”

“I know my prayers!”

Even as he chuckles at Hinata’s reddening face, he can’t say he blames the tengu. To be far away from everyone else is a rare privilege. “You said that your home was a settlement. Where were you before?”

“I was born here. Before that, we were around.”

“Around.” Kenma frowns at the vagueness of it all. “Then why this mountain?” There are maybe five villages at most nearby. Picking off the stragglers wouldn’t yield enough for all the tengu to share.

Firelight warms Kenma’s knees, but the glow it casts on Hinata’s smiling face makes it look cold. “Why don’t you humans live on the mountain?”

“The mountain is inhospitable,” Kenma recites from memory. Wild boars that can gore you with their tusks. Marshes you can drown in. Rivers that will sweep you away. “We had to settle in the valleys.” The elders made sure everyone knew of how their ancestors struggled through the harsh weather, a journey that claimed the lives of many. Only the flatlands could hold their home.

“A horrible mountain where bad things happen is scary, so you didn’t come up here. But you needed a monster, so we arrived.”

Kenma frowns. “But you have royalty and a bloodline, so you came from something.”

“The elders say that we came from the goddess Amanozako. It’s not too bad to be related to a goddess! But Suga says something different.” Hinata’s voice grows hushed, like speaking of it will get him in trouble. “He says that humans needed to be reminded to be scared of what’s out there. Why else would we have appeared from nothing? --Then everyone got all mad! Funny, right?”

To be told you have blood of the gods or that you’re a calamity created by mankind; one’s clearly more preferable. “And you believe that?”

“I don’t know. It’s pretty cool to be related to a god. Suga’s smart! He doesn’t make stuff up-- at least not stuff that gets people that mad. Guess the elders would get angry if the reason we look like we do is because that’s what our food wanted us to look like.  But I don’t mind. Although, can you all imagine me a little taller? I want to be taller than Kageyama-- maybe even Tsukishima!” Hinata snickers to himself, conjuring up his imaginary victory. “Take that, you two! They won’t laugh at me when I’m tall!”

Yet despite the wings and fangs, Hinata looks terribly human.

Youkai may be strong enough to rip a human to shreds, but they’re surprisingly fragile. Just like a torrent of snow, they kill indiscriminately and ruin everything that they fall upon. But give them one day in the scrutinizing sun, and they’ll melt away as if they never existed.

“You know if Suga is right, then if,” when, “people stop believing in tengu, you’ll all go away. You’ll become stories.”

Hinata puffs up, feathers ruffling. “But the wind wouldn’t go away, or rockslides, or avalanches. We’d become something else. You can’t get rid of us that easily!”

“You’re confident.”

Hinata shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe one day humans will think we’re scary stories, but that right now, you believe in us.”

To be fear itself, to exist yet not exist-- Kenma can’t say the idea sounds bad. Much better than a shut-in with a weak heart. Hinata shines like an inferno. Getting burned might not be so bad. “I believe in you, Shouyou.”

Hinata grins. “Now is the rabbit ready? I need meat!”

 

* * *

 

A young man is wandering through the trees. Alone. Kindling is piled on his back, and he keeps squinting at the sky.

Hunger drips from every moment, and Hinata’s teeth gnash underneath his mask. He is a needle ready to pierce, but he can’t lunge just yet.

Humans aren’t just some regular animal. People are tricky, deadly. Even though Kenma’s grown used to the mountain, he’s still thin with a weak heart. It’s a _human being_. But he promised, he promised.

Shuddering, he gathers his breath in his core. He comes into the clearing, hands visible to show he’s unarmed. Shoulders pinned together, he looks as shy as possible, “Are you lost too?”

A knife sees sunlight before the young man’s eyes see another human shape. Momentarily he’s stiffly perplexed, but the relief that floods his face so gleeful it makes Kenma’s stomach churn.

He talks about how worried he is and how his village is waiting for him and surely Kenma’s village must be waiting for him too, everything he says sounds more like a story. Kuroo’s youkai were real, but this is a fantasy. There’s a world between them.

Remain still like the surface of a pond. Keep nodding and pretending like they’re the same.

Just wait.

Hinata looks up at him, wings flapping, beaming at the idea of hunger no longer panging down to his stomach. “Kenma! Meat for dinner!” Before Kenma can react, Hinata has him tight in a hug. “You’re the best!”

Kenma stiffens, speechless, but before he can think to touch Hinata back, Hinata’s already let go, shouting about how they need to go dig up more wasabi.

The birds above continue to chirp, too indifferent to cast judgment. Shadows on the ground flutter along the breeze. Kindling that was tightly bundled together now lays scattered across Kenma’s feet. Nothing has changed.

Hinata flits around him when he gets to work. “You’re pretty hardcore.”

It’s not allowed to be a human. Whatever he’s cutting up is a _thing_. No different than a deer.

For his dinner, all that’s left of the rabbit is a thin flank. He could boil the bones to make stock for soup and go searching for green onions. Maybe he can throw in pine bark and berries. They wrapped most of the meat up in taro leaves so blood wouldn’t drip all over their robes and roasts the rest.

It smells like pork. Even with the soup in his hands, the scent makes his stomach gurgle.

“You can’t have any. Humans have no right to eat other humans.”

Kenma’s mouth crinkles at being seen. “Because it’s taboo...”

“Taboo, huh?”

Hinata’s sincere, but a bit of an airhead. At the same time, he knows something that Kenma can’t think to grasp.

 

* * *

 

Blood dribbles down Hinata’s chin, and Kenma makes to put the mushrooms back on the fire. They haven’t seen another human come along, so they have to ration the meat. Luckily with the weather warming up little by little, the animals have started to become braver.

“How long have we been up here?”

“Don’t know.”

Kenma twists the meat around the fire. ‘I’ve been spirited away.”

Hinata laughs to himself, proud. “The first to do a spirited away in decades and it’s me! Take that, Kageyama!” He cranes forward over the fire to pick another piece, balancing on both knees.

“You’re better now.”

Hinata pauses, looking nervously away. “You found out.”

Now that Hinata’s healed up, he can leave their deal of necessity. Fade into the setting sun.

Kenma knows he can’t go back to the village. There’s nobody waiting for him but Kuroo, and after all this time, it’s unbelievable that a sickly shut-in would be able to live in the wild for that long. They’d accuse him of being a monster and cast him out again.

Kuroo told him to live, but to those he left behind, he was dead the moment he was chosen.

“Why don’t you just fly away? You can finally go home. ”

Hinata chews thoughtfully. “It’s pretty normal for tengu to do their own thing for a while. I’ll just stay with you.”

Alone he’s just a burden, especially compared to a monster that can chop the skies with a swipe of his hand. “Why? You don’t have to do that.”

“Because I like you, Kenma.”

The answer freezes Kenma at the joints. Lies, nobody gives that answer with ease. “What else?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

He was never anyone’s first. As wonderful as Kuroo was, he’d one day have to get married and leave Kenma all alone. Breathily, with his heart in his throat, Kenma says, “It’s enough.”

 

* * *

 

Kenma sits on the edge of a cliff, knees to his chest, the sun warming him. Below him are sprawls of greening trees that dip down and shorten into the reeds before the valley. The village he used to call his home is as busy as always. The winter made them drag their feet, but now they’re working hard for the living. Not for those left behind. He tries to squint to spot Kuroo’s messy hair, but he can only see shapes from this distance.

This is as close as he’ll ever get.

“Are you going to go back?” Hinata asks from the trees. “It’s okay if you go.”

Aside from Kuroo, they never wanted him in the first place. He could find a new village, but then he’d be skewered by suspicious stares. He wasn’t born there and even if he dies there, he’ll never be one of them. All that’s left is the mountain. “No.”

“Then stay here! Wise, sagely hermit Kenma! You could help people in the mountains, give them advice or trick them! Wait, that’s kind of what we tengu do already…”

“To them, I’m dead. I’ve already killed a human. There’s nothing left for me to be but a monster.”

Hinata swoops down and folds a wing over Kenma. It’s soft on his neck and unquestionably warm. “You’re not a monster, you’re Kenma.”

Youkai are made with a few things. Peerless anxiety. Predation towards humans. They are the crystallization of phenomena, something that humans can never understand.

He’ll be spotted eventually, and then people will start to tell stories. The boy abandoned will be forgotten while the human-shaped creature that lives in the mountains will be remembered. He’ll go through many transformations, but he’ll end up changed.

He’s already going to become one, isn’t he? He was practically one by being kept prisoner in his own home. He’s already past the border of humanity. Once across, there’s no going back.

“Do we have any more of that meat?”

Hinata springs back. “That’s not for--”

“A human.” Yes, a _human_.

Kuroo told him to live, didn’t he? Survive and live, at all costs.

Although, he never did say _how_ to live.


End file.
